White Pelicans Fly Off Course, Succumb To Farm Chemicals

March 6, 1999|STAFF REPORTS

At least three American white pelicans have been recovered after crash landing in Palm Beach County, apparently victims of an unusual die-off that has pushed the birds far from their migratory home in central and west Florida, wildlife officials said Friday.

Two of the huge birds, which can have 10-foot wingspans, have died. The third was being treated for toxins at the Ocean Impact Foundation-Marine Wildlife Care Center in West Palm Beach, Executive Director Dianne Suave said.

Alerts issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the state Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission and the Florida Audubon Society indicate more than 400 of the birds have been killed in the die-off, which began around Thanksgiving.

The center of the die-off is Lake Apopka, northwest of Orlando.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife has identified the suspected cause of the die-off as organochlorine chemicals used over the years on nearby farmlands.

"The birds are preying on the fish in ditches and small pools northeast of the lake," said Dale Hall, acting regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The third casualty to come to Palm Beach County became disoriented in flight and crashed into a telephone pole on Thursday along Boynton Beach Boulevard, witnesses told Suave.

Suave said the bird's condition had stabilized by Friday.

It was being treated with phenobarbital and atropine to control seizures, low sugar levels, dehydration and toxicity.

Two other American white pelicans, which migrate between central Florida and the Northwest United States, were brought to the center on Tuesday.

"Both birds were suffering from extreme symptoms associated with organo-chemical toxins, and both died within 36 hours," the center said on Friday.

"The birds are literally falling out of the sky," Suave said.

The two birds that died were recovered from Military Trail in Lake Worth and a sugar cane field in Belle Glade.

Suave said reports of dead birds have come in from as far south as Key West.

Resee Collins of the Audubon Society care center in Maitland said as many as 450 white pelicans have died since Thanksgiving, an "alarming" number and far more than the normal number of deaths expected during the course of the birds' migrations.

The birds, which can measure 6 feet long and can weigh from 10 to 17 pounds, come to west and central Florida in late summer and leave in March, Collins said.

She said the birds are of a different species from the smaller brown pelicans common on Florida's east coast. While brown pelicans feed by diving from the sky, white pelicans scoop their food from the water.

Suave and Collins said federal and state scientists were conducting necropsies on dead birds to identify the toxins that are killing them.

Near Lake Apopka, local aviators and experimental aircraft pilots have been asked to avoid low flights that may disperse the pelicans into toxic danger zones.

The die-off has also affected endangered wood storks, Hall said.

Suave asked that anyone who sees an imperiled bird call the care center in West Palm Beach at 561-471-3403.